Have you ever wondered what DI athletes go through day in and day out during the school year?

Former Lebanon basketball standout Kelsey Winfrey will be writing letters back to her hometown to keep the community updated on what her college experience has been like.

Winfrey finished her prestigious basketball career with 2,052 points. She finished her senior season averaging 21.6 points per game, 7.4 rebounds per game, 4.9 steals per game, and 3.6 assists per game. She helped lead the Lady ‘Jackets to their first district championship in 13 years. She was named first team All-State her junior and senior seasons and was named an Ezmark All-American.

Winfrey was a state-qualifier for the Class 4 Cross Country meet, holds the school record in the 800-meter dash, and was the Ozark Conference triple jump champion. Winfrey was also apart of the Lebanon volleyball team.

She made history in 2015 whenn she was the first female to score in a varsity football contest in the Ozark Conference against the Hillcrest Hornets with an extra point.

Below is Winfrey’s letter back home to Lebanon.

At the beginning of the month, I came home before official practice started. I got to watch Faith Alwardt play volleyball at Drury University, and I got to listen my brother preach on Sunday morning.

It was very nice to see some of my friends and family. Official practice started on October 2nd. We got new gear for practice. The apparel includes new shoes, socks, shorts, and jerseys.

Practice is very intense. If you do not do one thing, they ask you the whole team may get punished, and trust me they ask you to do a lot of things at once. I will do something in practice, and I think I did everything right, and then one of the coaches will come over to me and tell me something I did not do, and I will have to do five push-ups.

Practice requires intense focus and absolutely no distractions. If a coach is talking and you are not making eye contact with them, you will get yelled at for it.

If you are not speaking regularly while you are on the floor, the coach will notice, and she will let you know about it. This is what it is like to play at the DI level, and I love every bit of it.
The coaches always want the best for you. When you are going through a trench, they are going through the trench with you.

They make sure our bodies are always healthy to compete. Before every practice, we do a little bit of physical therapy called SES to prevent ACL tear and other injuries. Mizzou regularly has ice baths ready for us after every practice. Now that season has started they order us massages every Sunday. The coaching staff knows that life is more than just a game of basketball. Every Tuesday we have a team meeting with a psychologist, and we talk about different subjects as a team. These meetings bring us very close and sometimes they even get emotional. I also could not ask for better teammates.

For the complete article, see the weekend print edition of The Daily Record, or view the e-Editiononline.